Beauty and the Beast
by TheVelvetVoice
Summary: With Bella and Edward, it was hard to tell which was one was which. AU.AH. Cannon Pairings. Not based on the fairy tale in any way, merely the story of two people who learn to forgive themselves...while falling in love with the other.
1. Prolouge: Rain

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So I realize that you have no clue what this story is about...

Basic summary: Edward and Bella have both grown up too fast, blaming themselves for a tragedy and living in a world where everyone else is trying to convince them that it "wasn't their fault". Together, can they learn to forgive themselves, and in turn learn to love each other?

Not as depressing as it sounds, three parts romance, angst and humor, and one major part friendship. :)

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**Prolouge**

Rain.

It fell like the tear drops of a higher being, cleansing and soaking Earth. It washed, it erased, it flooded.

He was afraid of water. Rain was water. But somehow he wasn't afraid of rain. It was peaceful to him.

When he was little he was told that the people he loved had left for the sky. For a place called heaven. He hated heaven, but he loved the sky. It's where his loved ones were now, after all.

The rain fell from the sky. Touching it, he felt as if he were touching some part of them, and their lost souls.

She wasn't afraid of anything. More so, afraid of being afraid. The rain was forgiveness, in her brown eyes. It washed away damage. It washed away sin.

The sun always came out after. It had to. She found beauty in this. Comfort. Peace. It always rained. It was natural. Necessary. Familiar.

In her life, anything familiar was good.

And as they sat, on different sides of town, one in her rain coat on a rock, the other completely soaked and bare, sure he was going to be sick in the near future as he lay in the grass, they realized.

Rain. No matter where it fell, or how fast it fell, it always fell in the same way.

Down.

**More soon. Please review!**


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Bella sat on her favorite swing, eying the others as if they were some alien form as she clutched the metal chains of hers.

Alice sat on the yellow slide, which only fit her anymore. She played with the long strands of grass that were on the bottom.

Emmett lay in the sandbox, his legs sticking out at an odd angle. He looked so out of place, as he had when they had met, that day so long ago.

It's amazing how much time can pass and how many things can happen but somehow, everything still stays the same.

Bella still only goes on the left swing, Alice is still the only one who goes on that slide, and Emmett still sticks out as he had when he was boy, his curly hair shining in the sunlight let in by the forgiving trees that surrounded them.

Thirteen years ago, they had met here, three four year olds who had ran into the woods when their keepers were distracted. They had found this little playground, new then, now rusty, but always abandoned. The only other people who knew about this place were their parents, who had found them some hours later, some crying, others screaming, and one with an entire police force behind him.

And of course, Jasper. But we'll get to that part of the story later.

They had met, two little girls and one not so little boy, before they had reached the cootie stage. They stared each other with their brown eyes. Then Alice had grinned, showing all of her missing teeth, and revealing the true soul of Alice, two parts joy and excitement, and one knack for trouble. She'd looked at the two others and pointed.

They had turned.

Behind them, was a tree. The two others weren't so interested. They saw trees all the time.

But Alice had just smiled. "Climb." she said simply.

Emmett, being a boy, naturally started up the tree, his then soft four-year-old boy hands reaching to pull himself up.

Bella, being a girl, a clumsy one at that, merely stood and bit her lip. She didn't really know if Muma and Daddy would be too happy.

Alice stepped forward.

"Help me up. And I'll help you when I get up."

So Bella had moved forward as she walked to the tree, holding out her hand so Alice could step up and reach the first branch, where Emmet stood, blinking down at them.

When she got up there, they both held hands to help Bella up.

And from then on, they were friends.

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Thirteen years later, they lay here, in the grass in front of the slide, which if you followed led to the trial that was familiar only to them.

Bella looked up at the sky, practically buried in the three-foot long grass that surrounded them. Once upon a time that grass had been small and they had ran through it with bare feet, giggling at the wet tickly feeling.

Alice lay somewhere to her left, her tiny form completely covered in green. Emmett was to her right, and she could vaguely tell where he was by seeing the shadows of where the grass was bending.

The sky had always been a wonder to her, so blue, so far away.

She had always imagined the sky to be a part of some other world, one she wasn't allowed to touch.

The clouds seemed to move above her head,wispy puffs of cotton which were even whiter than the skin of her hand as she reached up, trying to grasp something she knew wasn't there.

_You'll reach the sky,_

_You'll learn how to fly._

_You won't need me when you cry._

_I'll be here, my baby._

_I'll be here, my baby._

_You'll be there, to save me._

_You'll reach with you hands._

_Someday, you'll save me._

It was her lullaby, one that her mother sang to her, when she was little, when she...still had her. She never quite understood what it meant. But it was always soothing to her, listening as she sat in her mother's lap, as she sat, watching her mother play on the piano.

They had dried her tears many times in her childhood, those eight lines. Simple words that formed sentences. Now, they brought tears, silent, salty, and painful.

It was one of the only songs her mother knew how to play, and now, no matter how hard she tried, she could never make the notes sound like the way they did in her memory. Her fingers never could find there way over the keys, stopped often by confusion, by her sobs.

Her hands, long and thin, were something she never knew quite what to do with. When she was smaller, she had believed that she was given two hands so she could hold Emmett's in one and Alice's in the other.

Now, though she still believed this, her hands were meant to reach, to touch the sky.

She didn't know where the sky was. She gave up hopes in flying. She was the one always being saved.

But she'd never quite stopped reaching.

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**Please, Please, review. Otherwise I won't think anyone is interested. Edward next. **


	3. Chapter Two

"_There's a pool_," he repeated.

Rosalie--his twin sister--who was sitting in front of the dresser, just sighed at his reflection.

"You'll get over it."

They weren't the same, his twin sister and he. They were both tall and lean, but the similarities were quickly cut off there; Rosalie was as feminine as Edward was muscular. Her hair was more of a yellow blond while his hair was more bronze. His green eyes met her blue ones in the mirror, momentarily calm—clear blue against freckled—an intense green.

But they both kept their distance from people. They both were private beings, who enjoyed being the wallpaper in the room, although Rosalie preferred being a bold pattern versus Edward's solid one colored-ness. They had similar characteristics—being melodramatic and stubborn, sometimes too smart for their own good. Though, the main difference was Rosalie liked to speak, while Edward preferred to listen. Explaining her current position—having difficulty summoning the patience to correctly reassure Edward about the pool.

His frown turned into a scowl. "Its eight feet deep Rosalie! _Eight feet__!_"

Her mouth opened, but shut it when the door was opened to reveal Esme's face.

"Everything alright?"

Rosalie picked up her hair brush and began to run it through her hair again. She didn't look away from her reflection as she answered.

"We're fine."

Edward didn't say anything. He just walked past Esme and into his room, the scowl still on his face.

Eight feet of blue, chlorine filled water.

God, how he hated this new house.

Esme was at his door a minute later, as he knew she would be. He sat on his newly made bed and watched her talk.

Something about fresh starts. New memories, new friends, taking chances, forgetting the past...he zoned out after that, focusing when she assured him that the pool would remain closed until Carlisle could get someone to "fix it" and that, for the millionth time, everything would be okay.

She then told him about school tomorrow, and when she finally had nothing more to talk about she just stared at him for a few moments, her brown eyes worried.

"Just promise me something Edward."

He nodded.

"Just...just try not to be so...intimidating."

"I am not intimidating," he said quickly, "I'm perfectly civil to everyone."

But it was too defensive, and Esme already had more to say.

"It's just...sometimes you isolate yourself Edward...promise me that you'll," she fumbled for words, "talk...to people this year—make an effort."

He sighed, having nothing to say in return but a measly "okay".

Esme smiled and moved forward to kiss his forehead.

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight Esme."

He fell back against his bed, thinking of the next day...and trying to forget about the giant mass of water that was in his backyard, only thirty meters away.

Oh, god.

His first day in school was a nightmare. He made it to his first class without getting lost, but ended up standing in front of the door to the class for a good sixteen minutes until he finally opened it and stepped inside.

The silence was deafening. It made him want to crawl and scream. He stood under the gaze of twenty or so people for several moments, self conscience and anxiety covering him like an itch.

Finally the teacher stepped forward, and he was granted the permission to go sit in one of the back seats without an embarrassing introduction.

The next class was worse. He made it in early and avoided the spotlight, but ended up sitting in someone else's seat, a tall boy with greasy hair who seemed unbelievably unwilling to give up his habitual spot.

This was debate. In most high schools debate was an after school thing which entitled people who talked faster than the voices on the end of medicine commercials that said the side effects and carried around folders upon folders of information that was considered useless by about ninety-nine percent of the world.

In Forks high school, debate was a class where you got credit for presenting a new topic every week and finding some way to make it controversial so they could argue.

Rosalie, he thought silently, would love this class. He watched a tall boy with brown hair do his topic, and it took his ears a while to actually make sense of the fast noise that came out of his mouth. The fact that he constantly shuffled note cards in front of himself was not helping at all.

And then the boy was finished, his two minutes over, and the class clapped, and Edward clapped along stupidly, not having any idea or even the gist of what they were talking about.

He zoned out as the next person went, but realized that he was missing something when the class started to "_ooh_" and "_ahh_".

"...therefore abstinence is what should be taught. This would automatically eliminate the rising number of teen pregnancies and the fact that one in four people have an STD..." The boy went on, his eyes dashing back and forth on his note card at an alarming rate. He was mid sentence when he was cut off by the buzzer.

The teacher, Mr. Cain, sat on his stool dutifully and looked up from whatever he was doing.

"Rebuttal?" His gray eyes searched the room and landed on a girl several seats in front Edward.

"Swan. Go."

The girl folded herself out of her chair, and made her way to the podium. When she turned to face them Edward realized two things. One, she was unprepared, having no note cards and judging form the way she was bitting her lip, a lack of confidence. Two, she was...she did not belong in that class...

"In 2008, teaching abstinence to high schoolers is useless. Studied have showed that six in ten teenage girls become sexually involved, and..." She went on swiftly, her smooth voice carrying across the room steadily. Her cheeks were becoming light pink from either talking so fast without breathing or because of what she was talking about.

Edward watched her lips move, fast, smooth, every now and then showing her white teeth. Her brown eyes stayed focused on something in the back of room.

And then she was done and he followed the class in turning to the teacher who was staring at the girl he knew only as "Swan".

She bit her bottom lip again. "Are my two minutes done?"

Mr. Cain blinked and looked down at the timer in his hand.

"No.."

The girl let go of the podium.

"Oh, well I'm done anyways."

She walked back to her desk and sat down.

The rest of the morning was blurry. Lunch came, and his stomach churned when he realized he hadn't asked Rosalie if they had the same lunch; therefore, he had no clue where to sit.

But, as he made his way to the cafeteria (slow among the crowd rushing to get their food) he found his sister searching the room like him. Their eyes met and she sighed quietly and he moved forward to stand next to her in line, well aware of the casual stares they were receiving.

They got their food, a slice of pizza and rubbery mac and cheese, and walked out of the line. Edward was overcome by the amount of tables and chatter.

Rosalie led them to an empty one in the corner and they sat down.

They ate in silence and as Rosalie moved the tray towards her to take a bite of pizza, Edward glance around and saw the girl from his debate class sitting at the next table by herself, with a book propped up in front of her.

He watched as a guy twice his size with massive arms and brown hair came and sat next to her, sliding his loaded tray of food in front of her and pulling the book out of her grasp.

"Emmett!" he heard her say.

Rosalie now followed his line of vision and the pizza she was holding was placed on back on the plate.

Emmett grinned at her and turned the book to read the title.

"You've read this a million times!" A look of playful exasperation adorning his face.

Edward didn't hear her response, but saw her dig into her pizza. A petite girl and a blond guy joined them, and they too placed trays in the middle of the table.

Rosalie turned her head back to Edward. "Are they in any of your classes?"

"One of them," he replied.

And then lunch was over and he split up from his sister to walk to bio.

Walking into his class, he noticed that he was early, and, therefore had fewer eyes on him as he moved to sit in the chair the grumpy looking teacher directed him to.

Sitting absentmindedly, he watched the faces around him—putting them to memory.

He was barely paying attention when the chair next to him was pulled away from the desk and the girl from lunch sat next to him.

His head turned automatically, and he was slightly startled to see that she looked upset. Her brown eyes were alight with something, her cheeks were just as flushed as they had been in class and she was breathing in gasps, her face almost in pain.

Edward was aware that he was in one those situations where he didn't quite know what to say, and couldn't bring himself to spit it out even though he was aware he would replay the moment in his head over and over again wishing he'd said something.

The period was therefore spent with him opening and closing his mouth repeatedly and glancing at the girl beside him from the corner of his green eyes. Thankfully the teacher had put on a tape and no one seemed to be paying much attention to anything, although his neighbor's eyes seemed to be glued to the T.V screen, but he had a feeling she too was not really listening to the narrator's deep monotone voice go on about the various layers of a biosphere.

And then the bell rang and she stood, picking up her bag in one motion and walking out in a robotic manner.

Edward stared after her before going to Spanish, where he was asked several times whether he was thirsty since the class was going over manners.

His answer was always no.

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PLEASE REVIEW! Thankyou to my Beta: fall out of grace a.ka. **Kilee a.ka Kaori.**

**i dont know y this is bold all of the sudden..lol.**

**please tell me ur thoughts.**

**more about the plot will be revealed soon in later chapters.**

**please review.!!**


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